Tire explosion kills employee at Fort Myers auto service shop

A man is dead after a tire exploded at the A-Expert Tire and Auto Service Center near San Carlos Park.

The incident happened on Monday at around noon.

Deputies from the Lee County Sheriff's Office reported that the victim was an employee at the auto center.

According to the incident report, two employees were working to inflate several large tires. While they were releasing pressure from one tire, it blew off the rim and struck one of the men in the head, causing severe trauma that led to his death, the report said.

This incident follows a similar fatal event at a Firestone Auto Center in Cape Coral just weeks earlier that left a man dead.

A-Expert Tire and Auto Service Center declined to comment on the incident and did not allow media on the property.

Javier Machado, who owns Best Wheels of Fort Myers and has over 18 years of experience with tires, discussed the incident with Fox 4's Mahmoud Bennett.

Machado explained that such accidents are uncommon and usually involve tire defects or operator error.

"It’s very rare, unless you had a tire that was a defect or you had someone that didn’t know what they were doing, somebody young," Machado said.

While it is unclear what size tire the man was dealing with when he was killed, Machado emphasized that these tragic cases are preventable with proper inspection, training, and safety protocols.

"You can overinflate a tire to the point where it could blow up on you," he explained. "I mean just to give you an example, on a 12 ply tire, maximum PSI on that is about 80, OK? When it reaches about 120 it'll blow up on you," Machado said.

Machado explained that larger tires often have safety measures in place to protect the person inflating them.

"On semi tires, in order for you to inflate those tires, you have to have a cage. That cage will protect you and the surroundings in case anything blows," Machado said.

In its report, LCSO did not release the name of the deceased employee.